


'Captive Prince' Drabbles

by hrothgarsdaughter



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-03-26 02:46:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3834127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrothgarsdaughter/pseuds/hrothgarsdaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles inspired by C. S. Pacat's 'Captive Prince'. There's no particular order to these; I write as the mood takes me, so they jump around the story a fair bit. Oh, and the title of each drabble was the prompt I used to write it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Water (Prince's Gambit, Ch12)

For one moment, it is as if the whole world has narrowed down to just this: the touch of Damen’s hands. He should feel the water seeping into his clothes; he should feel the wind, cooling as it hits wet skin. All he does feel is the very lightest of pressures as Damen’s hands skim down his chest. He isn’t hurt, he knows this, but he can’t quite convince himself to push Damen away and stand up. For the first time in what seems to him to be a very long time, Laurent permits himself a moment of genuine surprise.


	2. Lesson ('Captive Prince' Prologue)

He watched discreetly from the alcove as they walked the length of the viewing gallery. Uncomfortable with their apparent intimacy and how her lips lingered overlong at his ear as she leaned in to make herself better heard, he couldn’t help the sigh of relief as she parted from his brother without a backwards glance. His jealousy was surely misplaced. After all, it was his own rooms that she had left in the early hours – for propriety’s sake only, she had insisted.

  
It should have been a lesson learned.

_‘What have you done?’_  
_‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘but choose between brothers.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last two lines, of course, are borrowed from the Prologue!


	3. Child

The man stares at the boy, and a flicker of something dishonourably hostile crosses his face. It's gone in an instant, and the boy almost certainly doesn't notice, elated as he is by his unexpected triumph. The man smiles, inclining his head in a gesture that might be mistaken for humility, and he steps away with as much swagger as he can muster. He spies his sword on the bench, and his gaze tracks slowly between it and the wooden practice weapon currently in his hand.

"Well done, little brother. What say you to real steel for the next round?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Damen's memory of a fight with Kastor (Captive Prince, chapter 2).


	4. Hiding

As he gently urged his horse further into the cave, he made himself acknowledge the fact that he found their current predicament distinctly unsettling. If their situations were reversed, Laurent knew that he would have taken full and brutal advantage of Makedon’s appearance by selling Damen out, pact or no pact, in order to gain himself an advantage. But he understood, with a surety that he didn’t wish to examine too closely, that Damen wouldn’t betray him. Damen wouldn’t know how to.   
It almost made him feel guilty for not revealing to Damen the extent of his negotiations and alliances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appear to be drawn to this section of the story! Takes place while Laurent is hiding from the Akielons in Chapter 12 of 'Prince's Gambit'.


	5. Trust

'Trust me,' Laurent said, as he pulled on the reins and moved out ahead of his men. 

He did, indeed, want Damen to trust him. To trust that he could take Fortaine. To trust that he could take Fortaine by himself, without Damen by his side. If Damen had handed Laurent his first victory against the Regent, then here was the opportunity for Laurent to mark the scorecard with an individual effort: taking the keep from Guion before he had the chance to finish licking his wounds from Hellay.

But he also wanted Damen to trust him in light of the pact he’d made with Nikandros. Before nightfall, if all went according to the meticulously detailed plan that Laurent had been working on since even before Damen landed at his feet in Arles, Nikandros, kyros of Delpha, and his commander, Makedon, would arrive with their Akielon troops at Ravenel. Amidst all the allegations of being in bed with the Akielons, Laurent had outwardly maintained a well-rehearsed demeanour of disgust, whilst inwardly acknowledging that without the support of men completely outside of the Regent’s reach, his ability to bring the southern border lords to heel was nigh non-existent. Nikandros was one such man: intelligent enough, for a barbarian, to understand that Theomedes’ death had little to do with old age and illness, and sufficiently enlightened to see that the Regent’s current accord with Kastor was at best a theatrical piece of nonsense, and at worst a prelude to war. 

It was, naturally, integral to Laurent’s plan that Damen should stand at Ravenel a free man, and not Laurent’s slave. For Laurent and Damen’s hastily shaped plan for the battle at Charcy to succeed, Laurent needed full control of the Akielon force. A force that was resolutely loyal to Makedon and Nikandros, and would likely not stand peaceably by whilst their commander and kyros bowed to the command of the Crown Prince of Vere’s pleasure slave. No. But what Akielon soldier would refuse to fight under the command of one so beloved as Prince Damianos, the rightful heir to the Akielon throne?

As together they had crafted the attack on Fortaine and outlined the subsequent battle against the Regent, it had been on the tip of his tongue to tell Damen that the reinforcements he was to expect would be his countrymen, but a lifetime’s habit of playing his cards close to his chest and concealing the truth from all but the most necessary of players was hard to break, and as each moment slipped past, Laurent had felt less and less willing to confront the inevitable tide of co-mingled sentiment and resentment that would result from his acknowledgement of the truth of Damen’s identity.

'Trust me,' Laurent had said, swiftly suppressing the uncharacteristic, but no longer entirely unwelcome, surge of emotion that had made him want to add: _just as I am learning to trust you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a little longer than my usual 100 words, but I felt like exploring a little more of Laurent's pov.


End file.
